This sale is the third offering by Kestenbaum & Company of Rare Books from the Judaica library of the late Arthur A. Marx.
The auction is divided as follows:
Rare Hebrew Books: Lots 1 - 125.
Jerusalem / Eretz Israel imprints: Lots 126 - 155.
Anglo-Judaica: Lots 156 - 163.
American-Judaica: Lots 164 - 217.
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LOT 28:
COHEN, SHALOM BEN JACOB.
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Start price:
$
250
Estimated price :
$300 - $500
Buyer's Premium: 25%
sales tax: 8.875%
On the full lot's price and commission
Users from foreign countries may be exempted from tax payments, according to the relevant tax regulations
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COHEN, SHALOM BEN JACOB.
Mata'ei Kedem al Admath Tzafon / Morgenländische Pflanzen auf nördichem Boden [“Eastern Plants upon Northern Soil”].
FIRST EDITION. Text in Hebrew and German.
pp. (3), 13, 156. Ex-library, light wear. Contemporary boards, rubbed. 8vo.
Vinograd, Roedelheim 39.
Rödelheim, Wolf Heidenheim, 1807.
Shalom ben Jacob Cohen (1772-1845) was born in Mezhirech, Poland/Ukraine. As many a young man in search of broader knowledge, he gravitated to Berlin, where he became a lifelong friend of Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely, perhaps the most gifted Hebrew poet of the day. Wessely infected Cohen with his passion for Hebrew poetry and the present volume of poetry attests to that passion. During the years 1809-11 Cohen served as editor of the literary journal HaMe'asef.
Like his mentor Wessely, Cohen might be considered the traditionalist element within the burgeoning Haskalah movement. He was opposed to the liberties taken in the Hamburg Temple, beachhead of the Reform movement. It was none other than Cohen who translated into German the responsa of leading rabbis in condemnation of the Hamburg Temple that were included in Eileh Divrei HaBrith (Altona, 1819). Equally significant is the fact that he published Shorashei Emunah, in defense of the divinity and immutability of both Written and Oral Laws (London, 1815).
Mata'ei Kedem consists of three works: 1) An epic poem on Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees; 2) Several poems portraying incidents in the life of King David; and 3) A drama in two acts based on the story of Naboth HaYisraeli.
See M. Waxman, History of Jewish Literature, Vol. III (1936) pp. 153-8; EJ, Vol. IV, pp. 154-5; JE, Vol. V, cols. 685-6.
